Ugly Morning; Gold Pops As Stocks Drop

It's an ugly start to the day wherever we look. Europe is a bloodbath as the dead-cat-bounce hopes fade with Swiss 2Y rates notably negative once again and Italian bond spreads 55bps wider on the week (near the wides of the week) as Italy's equity market plunges back to the lows (-4%) on the week. US equity futures are fading rapidly and after tracking gold for most of the last 12 hours, we are now seeing gold (and silver) resurge as stocks continues to slide back towards bonds un-exuberance. Treasury yields are at the lows of the week (-11bps). From weak macro data overnight to the whocouldanode sequestration, there's plenty to worry about, but then again we have POMO in a few hours...

I just finished watching House of Cards on Netflix. David Fincher of Fight Club- and it's almost as compelling. About a year ago I read the book Psychopath Test... a great quick read for those here who have not yet picked in up. Psychopathology not only attracks other psychopaths but has a tendency to pull others into the behavior. House of Card paints this all perfectly. I imagine that being a bitch for people with power erodes a person over the time. Lying to yourself constantly, the rationalization that trading this for that is OK as long as the ends justify the means. I can't imagine someone like woodward being anything other than a shell of a human, no matter who he may have been in his youth. Of course, even then he was just a bitch. Soooo... this recent drama... hard to say what's really happening... and what the purpose of this story at this time might be.

I like the earlier article this morning, little 2% cut still means they'll spend more than last year. Bunch of crybabies can't do with a penny less...but have NO problem taxing the shit out of you at all.

Given that a full year would be $85b and this year is half over and will be another quarter gone before they can change paperwork, this amounts to about 21B this fiscal year which I would bet the gov pisses away within a couple days or so...

Since all govt. numbers are seasonally adjusted annualized guesses, your analysis on spending here does not matter. But what does matter is what Ben Bernanke said on The Hill this week...which I actually expect to become quite the topic of conversation in the coming days. I know, I know...unpossible...right? Actually, the thing that I think has now become unpossible is ignoring the QE issue any longer.

And since the blame game is about to get very real, the finger pointing war between DC and Wall Street, strap in, baby.

You know, in the context of the Humphrey Hawkins testimony just completed, where is the petition to remove B. Bernanke on whitehouse.gov? Seriously, wouldn't that be a more pertinent petition than...oh I don't know...building a Death Star?

And the bastards will make sure these relatively pipsqueak cuts will hurt at the people level the most.

They always do that - don't cut the travel budget for the AG (in the Gulfstream IV) or the White House staff of hangers-on but cut the highly visible things that cause the most pain. (or can be televised as 'painful cuts to women, children, minorities, LGBT, babies, baby food', on and on.)

The artificial suppression of PMs has greatly assisted ZH-ers in acquiring PM.

A strenghts of materials teacher once did the following demonstration to show what happens when metal reaches max stress.

He took a foot long ruler, placed it on the desk and started moving it 1 inch at a time. 1st inch nothing happens, 2nd nothing, ...nothing continues to happen with each little push until....the ruler drops off the table.

Ben can print 80b a month and nothing happens until the ruler drops off the table.

One possible end scenario for the USD, now that Britain has gone in to a currency swap deal with China is the "commonwealth" countries along with China (asia block) basically forcing a new Bretton Woods that lowers the position of the USD. Mark Carney could be a Black Swan in Sheep's clothing here.

Given the hockey sticking of debt, and money in circulation, and the price of gold over the long term, when debt and money supply were much lower, and when the dollar's reserve status was unimpeachable, I guess my question is - what is the basis for your claim?

Is it all the buying by central banks, or is it the increasing deals to trade commodities for gold {or non-dollar fiat}?

There's no question that the price in dollars of gold could come down in the nearer term, but to think it wouldn't shoot right back up, up and beyond where it is now in the longer term {people hold it to hedge mid and long term you know, largely, anyay} requires a complete lack of understanding of purchasing power of fiat currency? Why not google how much of things the dollar bought 20 years ago, or even 10. If gold is in a bubble, what on earth is the stock market in?

Reading a few articles in The Economist now and then doesn't necessarily mean you're not an ignorant twat.

so heres the gameplan. as we know, these fucking bastard douchebags will not let the market fall too much.( fuck u obama and bernanke, and all of the fed)

so with the poor global data today, including here in the states, what will happen is that despite the market not selling off at all due to the pending sequester cuts, they will make up a rumor how we will avoid them and the market will shoot up like 150 pts on the dow just on that.

these criminals will find anyway to shoot the market up.

lets hope though we lose 350 plus pts on dow today, i want panic on cnbc and wall st

This market will never go down. The FED will buy to the death, until one day there will be no point because the US dollar will be worth a penny. Probably around the time most people will retire. Then the S&P will be trading at 100 and no one will have shit. It is not just Bernenke it is everyone in DC in a position of power with a big enough brain to understand what is going on and does nothing(there have to be a few) . "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." There must be a way to explain this on an 8th grade level.

I think buying real assets for pennies-on-the-dollar is the end game here. My understanding is that there are several examples of this in American History - in the 1870s, the early 1900s... at a basic level, rapidly increasing the money supply disproportionately enriches those who have tremendous amounts of cash.

When you pull the rug out, and fairly quickly reduce the amount of $ in circ., why it gets even better for the banks. Still better when it leads to a world war.

I respectfully disagree. Bernanke already blew his wad with his "all-in" QE4EVA. All his printing is doing is giving the banks free money from interest payments. If the banks won't loan to JQ Public at rates much lower than they are right now this cat is dead.

"The risk that Britain is entering its third recession in four years grew on Friday, with figures showing manufacturing shrank unexpectedly in February and mortgage approvals for home buyers dropped in January.

Gross domestic product fell at the end of last year, bringing Britain within sight of another recession, and the latest data suggested the central bank may need to do yet more to revive the economy.

The pound sank to its lowest level against the dollar in more than two-and-a-half-years, while prices of British government bonds — which the Bank of England could resume buying — rose after the releases.

The Markit/CIPS Manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) fell to 47.9 from a downwardly revised 50.5 in January, confounding forecasts for a rise to 51. It was the first reading since November to fall below the 50 line that separates growth from contraction.

The only reason why the UK has not officially been in recession every quarter since the crash in 2008 is because the official inflation figures are a complete fabrication and far below the real inflation as felt by all of us living here (for example, my weekly shopping basket has gone up more in price by than 50% in two years).

So the BoE prints money, which causes prices and nominal GDP to rise and then when the official inflation figure is used to generate the official (real) GDP figures, because that figure is understated, the final (supposedly real) GDP actually contains a large amount of pound debasement effects which is passed of as growth.

Decreasing marginal returns in the expansion of fiat gold???? When will China announce a revision to its gold holdings of multiple times what had been shown until now? Even nicer, a downwards revision on their Treasury holdings...

This word, unfortunately, is vastly descriptive of the overall state of our society... from finance, to politics and the environment, just about every important issue we face falls under the category of whocouldanode...

We go green by end of day as it dawns on the sheeple that kids are still getting vaccinations and libraries are still open...8 hours is about all the focus the world can handle on any one problem or celebration these days

That's NOT the sheeple making it green......it's The Bernack! Don't you get that the FEDERAL reserve has been buying 80% of this market. See the sheeple feel rich when they have digital money in their 401K, so they go spend. That's what is called the wealth effect Benny has been discussing!!

It can't believe my bad luck. My 3 monster boxes of Ag had just arrived just as we were leaving the dock. A freak windstorm ensued , the boat was swamped and sank. I was lucky to make it our alive. You would think I would have learned my lesson by now - this makes 5 boating accidents in the last few weeks.